A dark-haired, slick-looking character actor from England, Bert Starkey had spent years in repertory with Henry Savage and toured vaudeville with his own act prior to playing mostly unsympathetic characters in films, first under his real name of Buckley Starkey, then as plain Bert Starkey. A bit player after the changeover to sound, Starkey had several good moments as Epstein, the lawyer in Scarface (1932), and as one of the bus passengers in It Happened One Night (1935).